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About halfway through this fiercely intelligent thriller, a discussion about why some people are nasty or evil yields a torrent of possibilities. Virtually all the disciplines are represented, from astrology (“Saturn”) to sociology (“television”), dietetics (“lack of lithium and magnesium”) to psychodynamics (“a toxic mother”). When one suggestion (“the stock exchange”) is deemed “silly,” a replacement is hard on its heels: “post-traumatic shock.”

As the narrator Janina Duszejko, an ageing schoolteacher, puts it: “We tossed around ideas until we ran out of them.” But just as striking as the plenitude of factors is the unmistakable consensus, among Janina and her two friends, that the question...